On
April 14, 1979 a major uprising erupted in Monrovia as police
attempted to suppress a planned early morning demonstration march
against the proposed rice price increase. The Rice Riots (also known as
the “riots for rice and rights”) or “the day Monrovia stood still”occurred
during Easter Weekend, which had major religious and symbolic
significance in this predominantly Christian country, including the
obvious reference to the metaphorical resurrection of Jesus Christ on
Easter Sunday.
Tragically, the situation rapidly
deteriorated as police fired live ammunition into the crowd as
widespread looting ensued with many soldiers joining in. All commercial
ventures on downtown Broad Street and Camp Johnson Road were looted and
ransacked, including music supply stores. Eddie Gibson remembers that
the instruments from the Electro-Lite Music Store on Broad Street were
for sale all over the city after they had been looted during the Rice
Riots. At that time there were no window bars in place, just glass
windows on the shops up and down Broad Street and Camp Johnson Road, the
other main commercial shopping street.77 According to Emmanuel Dolo,
the Rice Riots were a “seminal event” in Liberian political life which
temporarily led to “complete state paralysis.”
The
Rice Riots shattered the notion of “Liberian exceptionalism;” the
notion that Liberians were somehow different than citizens of
neighboring West African nations. During the Rice Riots, Levitt tallies
“40-140 civilian (mostly student) deaths, 400 wounded, and roughly $40
million in property damage. George Kiah argues that during the Rice
Riots, the army (AFL) was passive in response to President Tolbert’s
shoot-to-kill orders and the “crisis of legitimacy reached a
crescendo.” Testing the newly signed Mutual Defense and Non-Aggression
Treaty of
the Mano River Union (MRU), President Tolbert called on Guinean troops to restore order in the aftermath of the riots.
The
Rice Riots were a manifestation of critical social, economic, and
political shortcomings with deep root causes within the national polity.
The rallying cry following the Rice Riots was “In the name of the
people, the struggle continues!” To many observers, these riots
represented a “culmination of more than one hundred years of national
leadership that appears to have eroded its constituent’s participation
in a meaningful way.” Liberian journalist Samuel Slewion observed “In
the end, Tolbert’s presidency can be likened to a restaurant that gets a
new paint job and hangs a big sign out front proclaiming ‘Under New
Management’ then stages a Grand Opening. However, when the customers
arrive, they quickly discover that the menu remains the same and the
cooks are the same people, offering the usual fare.”
People destroy their own homes.... for what? a shadow of things to come, and who would have known 40 years later the struggle continues.
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